Getting down to business

Tonight was our first real lunging session.  I was very happy to see that when asked, Koda can move quite nicely although he does have a touch of ADD, it seems.  When I first put him on the line he was very up and ready to go, trotting and cantering about.  I let it go as he got his monkeys out since he wasn't charging about, nor pulling on the lunge line.  When he started to slow down, pushed him on a bit then started our warmup and exercises.  We did some basic stuff on the lunge, transitions and some spiralling in and out at the trot.  The interesting thing to notice was whenever I gave him a bit of a break, or changed direction, he lost at least part, if not all, of his focus.  Every time we changed direction, he was a bit of a monkey, moving out rather quickly without being asked, and looking around instead of focusing on the work.  He would come back quicker and quicker as we went, but there were still those moments of "oh look!  what's that? GAH tree!" etc. 

I like using lunging to be able to gauge my horse's progress particularly since I'm training and riding mostly on my own without any eyes on the ground, and when I do have eyes, they're focused on their own horses or do not know what to look for.  We did some canter work and by golly that horse has a nice canter in him, just need to ask him for it!  His canter to the right is absolutely lovely (once balanced, he tends to throw himself into it with his head down and on the forehand for a few strides) yet his left is something to be desired... The first time he went into his left lead, his head was extremely low, he threw himself into it from a freight train trot, and it was just all over unbalanced.  We worked on trot-canter-trot transitions both ways, and eventually the left side did have a few moments of balance.  Just need to practice and build up those muscles.  We were only on the lunge for 35 minutes tonight, which is perfect since I really don't like to go over 40 minutes when lunging. 

Tomorrow will be transitions under saddle and run through of our dressage test.  I'm very glad that our test is only a walk-trot test and most technical things asked are a free walk across the diagonal and 20m trot circles.